Madonna Banned From Movie Theater Chain Over Texting

Just because you’re Madonna doesn’t mean you can break the rules. At least, that’s what one chain of cinemas is trying to enforce.

Madonna recently attended a screening of 12 Years a Slave at New York’s Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center during the New York Film Festival. She angered fellow festivalgoers when she was reportedly texting during the majority of the serious, slavery-focused drama.

One viewer asked Madonna to stop texting when she replied, “It’s for business… enslaver!”

Texas-based cinema chain the Alamo Drafthouse has zero tolerance for texting while a film is being shown. Founder Tim League took to Twitter to assert that the singer will be banned from watching future movies at Drafthouse until she apologizes.

League quickly recanted his tweet, telling Entertainment Weekly that it was originally written as an “offhand joke, a spur of the moment 140 characters.”

Used as a means to get the issue out that it is rude to text in a theater, he added: “Now that it seems to have taken hold, sure, I’m going to enforce it,” he said. “I’m serious, but I don’t think it really affects her life that much.”